Review/Rock; Two Shows: Buck Pets and Replacements
By JON PARELES
Published: March 20, 1991
For most of the decade, certain pop observers have been bemoaning the decline of thoughtful, melodic songs as rhythm and texture seize the foreground. But old-fashioned, tuneful songs haven't disappeared; they're just hiding behind blaring guitars and a deep distrust of pomposity and professionalism. At CBGB late on Wednesday night, the Buck Pets started and ended most of their songs in a hum and buzz of feedback; the previous Friday night at the Ritz, the Replacements knocked out one well-made song after another as if they were playing in someone's garage.
The Replacements, from Minneapolis, have been on the verge too long for anyone's liking. By the mid-1980's, the combination of Paul Westerberg's raucous, tuneful, funny, pensive songs and the band's bash-it-out style -- sometimes incandescent, sometimes just sloppy -- had earned the Replacements one of rock's most zealous (if underpopulated) cult followings. But after brilliant albums like "Tim" and "Pleased to Meet Me" failed to become hits, the Replacements changed. The group replaced its original guitarist and drummer with less flamboyant players as Mr. Westerberg's songs grew more earnest.
At the Ritz, the Replacements were dressed like two different bands: Mr. Westerberg and the bassist Tommy Stinson in typically bright, tasteless clothes and Slim Dunlap on guitar and Steve Foley on drums in modest black. The band has renounced its former antics; as Mr. Westerberg put it, half-joking: "We're professionals. This is our job. We don't like it but we get paid a lot of money." As the set progressed, it became clear that the Replacements haven't traded their old messiness for proficiency. Mr. Dunlap and Mr. Foley seemed to be playing along with the songs rather than adding anything to them.
But it barely mattered, because Mr. Westerberg has written so many extraordinary songs. The set's final stretch, from "The Ledge" (about a potential suicide) to "Here Comes a Regular" (about drunken self-pity) to the anthems of adolescent restlessness and frustration "Hold My Life," "I.O.U." and "Bastards of Young," to a celebration of pop, "Alex Chilton," could carry just about any band, especially with a singer like Mr. Westerberg, whose careworn, impassioned voice still sounds like he feels every word he sings.
The Buck Pets, from Dallas, have clearly heard and heeded the Replacements. They, too, are steeped in Beatles chords and heavy-metal guitars, and their songs try to capture emotions more complex then ordinary lust. As with many other bands on the collegiate-rock circuit, like Soul Asylum or the Lemonheads, the Buck Pets' presentation is noisy and unvarnished; between songs, they cracked jokes about bad 1970's bands, and they avoided posing as they strummed and socked their instruments.
Yet amid the high-volume clamor, the Buck Pets have honed their songs with pop concision, even when they defy pop formula. Some use regular riffs and choruses, others hurtle through multiple episodes. The lyrics veer between desperation and hell-raising, and as one song from their second album "Mercurotones" proclaims, they intend to "take it, shape it, give it to you in a three-minute piece of mood." That's the ambition that has guided pop songwriters since the dominance of Tin Pan Alley, and it's not obsolete yet.